• The show played bands like Patrick Watson, Arcade Fire and Stars.  I don’t expect Suffocation’s “Pierced From Within” at 2:00 PM in the afternoon*, but the music just doesn’t fit well with the content.  It would be nice for a show on CBC Radio One to not hold to the “music, then talk” lockstep of shows like Sounds Like Canada.  At the very least – if the show has to play music – play more obscure stuff, or a wider array of music than the popular college rock/pop way too many CBC Radio shows have played for at least ten years.

• The closing theme song is much better than the opening theme song.  At the beginning of the show I thought The Point had been cancelled and an episode of Quirks & Quarks thrown out in its place.  At least two shows use that Neil Armstrong clip on CBC Radio now, and that’s just lazy.
• Judging by the first episode, Aamer Haleem isn’t that bad a host.  He’s trying far too hard to be genial, but he’s better than Jian Ghomeshi.  I admit that I liked Ghomeshi when I reviewed Q for blogcritics.org, but since then I’ve found him smarmy and insufferable.  I don’t understand CBC Radio’s love for hosts from music cable channels – Haleem left VH1 to host this show, so at least it’s not combing MuchMusic this time – but there have been far worse hosts.  Then again, Haleem could get worse by next week.
• From the cbc.ca site: You will also hear stories you won’t get elsewhere, which is why Jesse Brown is on the show extrapolating an idea from his Search Engine blog.  CBC Radio reuses segment ideas often.  I just wish the producers of these shows would admit it.
• The Point seemed to get better by the third half-hour.  This is the inverse of Q, where the third half-hour is almost always throwaway shit.  The topics covered on The Point were either genuinely interesting – St. John’s George Street receiving a makeover so as to appeal to tourists and cut down on drunks – or pointless, like a segment on “green fatigue.”  The show seems a little too gimmicky at this point – Haleem’s “what if life had an instant replay” rant was lame and I’m not entirely sold on this rotating cast of “Point People.”  Yay for more fucking panel discussions!  If there’s one thing you don’t hear on CBC Radio, it’s that!

Overall, not a bad first episode.  Hopefully the show doesn’t go completely shit within the week.

^{*although that would be interesting, just to piss 97.5% of CBC Radio One listeners off}

I’m still for some reason listening to CBC Radio One.  Mind you, I’m not as hung up on that particular Crown Corporation as I was a few years ago.  Years of the company having no damn clue what to do with its many parts can do that to a company’s reputation.  You may have heard about the relaunching of CBC Radio 2, which is just swapping middle-of-the-road presentations of classical music for, uh, middle-of-the-road presentations of Ron Sexsmith.  Oh, Buck 65 has a weekday show.  I’ll stick to Carbonized, thanks.

Somehow 2’s relaunch and the elimination of the CBC Radio Orchestra caused outrage among classical music fans.  Blah blah dumbing down blah blah right-winger thinks the CBC should be eliminated yada yada Air Farce is cancelled and CTV owns the rights to the Hockey Night in Canada theme, so nothing new in MotherCorpLand.

I decided to check out Search Engine’s blog for shits and giggles.  I was surprised by the fact that the show was still on, albeit as a podcast.  Two things I noticed while listening to Search Engine:

1) Jesse Brown talked about the 2008 Canadian federal election – largely an ineffectual popularity contest between a boring Albertan, a boring Francophone and a boring man with a moustache – by saying that Canada is retarded.  Granted, he qualified that statement by saying that the political parties’ sense of Internet savvy was current for 1999.  Why he didn’t just say that is beyond me.  The segment came across as Jesse Brown wanting to be edgy, but finding something to backtrack on if someone objected to the use of the word “retarded.”

2) All the problems that Search Engine had in its first season exist this season – some pieces being basically non-stories (Gabe Carini runs for Prime Minister through MySpace, a PRWeb story if there ever was one), Brown’s forced-seeming attitude, and CBC shows using CBC as a topic.  Granted, Brown’s only put out two shows this season, but this show needs to be more gonzo, less self-absorption.

Also, The Tea Makers is back under the control of blogger/accessibility expert Joe Clark.  Being one of the most vocal CBC-related blogs, there’s the requisite bitching about CBC management, discussion about Search Engine, those fucking Allan posts et cetera.  I guess some people are giving Clark shit for not being as witty as “Ouimet,” the previous anonymous packet of data running that blog, but I dunno.  I don’t notice the difference.  It’s still whiny in spots and has always come across as people complaining about CBC not adhering to high ethical standards/mandate/what have you.  Sometimes The Tea Makers is good, and other times it’s navel-gazing shit.  It’s still far more entertaining than Shelagh Rogers or DNTO.